Broken Lives

by Konrad H Jarausch

  Ultimately the Hitler Youth exploited the adolescent need for belonging with great virtuosity. As a stateless Ukrainian in Prague, Wilhelm Kolesnyk decided to become German, because he wanted neither to be Czech nor Jewish. He joined the young gymnasts and was absorbed into the Hitler Youth where “I liked it pretty well as a Pimpf [cub].” But “it was almost pathological ambition, triggered by the advancement of a hated classmate, which drove me into the arms of the Nazis,” since he wanted to be a better HJ leader than his rival. Ruth Bulwin still recalls her BdM squad fondly as “a companionable group.” Like many former members, she remembers the “always laughing, joyous faces” of “enthusiastic youths, athletically fit, disciplined and dashing, completely convinced of the cause, uncritical and full of good faith in the future and the Führer.” Such positive memories suggest that most youths, on balance, liked being members of the HJ.46

  PRIVATE SPACES

  Many youths, nonetheless, managed to retain “private lives” unless they were racial or ideological victims of the NS regime. Beneath the ubiquitous Nazification pressure and compulsory HJ activism, “many things continued unaffected by current events,” allowing the pursuit of leisure, completion of schooling, entry into a job, or experience of first love. For instance, by doing small jobs, Gerhard Krapf saved up enough money to purchase his own Stricker bicycle, which permitted him to explore neighborhoods further from home. Considering “hunting in father’s district more important” than school, Horst Andrée was proud of “having shot my first buck.” Horst Grothus “paddled the whole length of the [Baldeney] lake” in his brother’s kayak and learned how to sail in a small dinghy during the summer.47 Escaping into apolitical pursuits made it easier for teenagers to put up with the ideological demands of the Nazi dictatorship.

  Even in the Third Reich, the religious ritual of confirmation or bar mitzvah signaled the end of childhood and the beginning of youth as a new life stage. In all faiths, this rite of passage followed a course of religious instruction that culminated in admission to the congregation of believers. Ruth Bulwin’s confirmation photo shows a lanky girl “in a long black dress with a collar of white ruffles, white gloves and a bouquet of lilies of the valley.” Boys like Gerhard Krapf would wear “spanking new blue suits with long pants and ties” and “carry a new leather-bound hymnal.” In Catholic homes, the celebration followed a similar pattern, also culminating in a family feast. Albert Gompertz recalled his 1934 bar mitzvah as a service in his synagogue and a private get-together among family and friends, complete with gifts.48 For most adolescents, this ceremony also meant the conclusion of elementary education and the entrance into an apprenticeship.

  Those youths who continued with schooling constantly worried about academic failure, which in the three-tier German system cut off access to professional careers. For a successful pupil such as Gerhard Krapf, the curriculum into which he was pressed “was one of the best things to have happened to me” since it laid a firm basis in the classics and exposed him to “anti-Nazi thinking” through some courageous teachers. By contrast, when Gerhard Baucke failed to apply himself sufficiently, he had to be sent to a private school, where he did much better. Horst Andrée flunked all his classes because he was bored and frustrated: “School made me puke and even hunting was no longer any fun.” But once again, being dispatched to a friendly but disciplined boarding school on the Baltic shore helped him recover. However, Karl Härtel gave up on advanced classes and decided to stay in primary school so as to enter an apprenticeship.49

  The attainment of Mittlere Reife at the end of junior high school was the educational goal for many pupils who were not able or resolute enough to continue further. In the German “entitlement system,” this was the midpoint between grade and high school, which still allowed access to white-collar occupations. Less ambitious or wealthy families with practical aims often sent their offspring to Realschulen or Mittelschulen, whose graduates only obtained the ninth-grade certificate. Because “something in the [previous] school upset” her, Gisela Grothus “decided to leave the Gertraudenschule with the Mittlere Reife in 1936” and transfer to a less challenging girls’ high school. Because he “saw no sense in continuing” due to anti-Semitic discrimination, Tom Angress similarly decided to leave high school with this intermediary certificate and enter practical training to prepare himself for emigration.50

  For more gifted and ambitious pupils, the goal was the coveted Abitur or academic high-school diploma, which opened the door to the professions and higher careers. Instituted by Prussian officials in the late eighteenth century, this graduation examination struck fear into the hearts of youths because failure was a real possibility. Robert Neumaier “later often regretted his refusal” to pursue it, since “I had to acquire with much dedication and perseverance what I had missed in my youth.” Heinz Schultheis was more fortunate: his interest in “technical innovations” such as airplanes, gramophones, and radios motivated him to study. In the end, “everything went pretty well” and he passed the exam, which he “celebrated in a dignified and joyous manner.” He was lucky, as his “Abitur was the last one during peacetime.” For later candidates such as Fritz Klein, the exam was watered down and graduates were immediately sent to the battlefront.51

  After the end of school, youths faced the difficult task of finding an occupation that would suit their preferences and in which training was available. Although the economy was improving, getting a starting position required a hard struggle. Due to his sister’s secretarial job at a vacuum pump builder, Robert Neumaier was able to begin an apprenticeship as a metalworker. Intent on preparing his son for emigration from Germany, Albert Gompertz’s father “decided the best way to go was to sign me on as an apprentice in the textile industry” in a Jewish company where he could learn the business from the ground up. Hearing about an opening through his father’s work at the local power plant, Karl Härtel managed to pass an entrance examination and start training in the novel occupation of “electrical worker” in 1937. “This was one of the happiest moments in my not even 14 year old life,” for it assured his material future.52

  With less formal training, young women flocked to white-collar pursuits in stores or offices where they could deal with people rather than doing manual labor. In June 1935 Anneliese Huber “began a mercantile apprenticeship in the office” of a women’s fashion store, owned by a “strict but correct” Jewish businessman. There, she learned to keep accounts and take shorthand under the vigilant eyes of her superiors. Needed in the family restaurant, Ruth Weigelt was only allowed to learn a few more useful skills in home economics. Because she had only finished grade school, Ruth Bulwin had to enter a “private commercial school” in 1938, where she learned the basics of accounting, bookkeeping, stenography, typing, and business correspondence: “Surprisingly I even enjoyed learning.” Though Gisela Grothus had completed high school, she “did not have the courage to study medicine” and contented herself with training to become a “medical technical assistant.”53 The young women liked their first career steps, which gave them independence and pocket money to spend.

  Completing an apprenticeship during the 1930s was not easy: the training took three years and was strictly regimented by a signed contract. Many young people had to board with another family or at a home for apprentices wherever their job was. In their workplaces, trainees had to do all sorts of menial tasks, following the whims of their superiors. Moreover, in crafts they had to start with the simplest of chores. Robert Neumaier, for instance, had to file pieces of different metals to learn their properties, while Paul Frenzel had “to sort coffee beans, stand at the sieve machine, roast coffee … and combine the different brands into coffee mixtures.”54 One day a week, apprentices also had to attend a vocational school to acquire systematic knowledge in their field. The workweek lasted forty-eight hours and the wages were meager. If trainees were slack, offended the boss, or ran afoul of Nazi politics, they were summarily fired.

  The formal end of apprent
iceship was an examination that promoted the candidate to journeyman or commercial assistant. To prepare for this test, eager employees such as Anneliese Huber would take evening courses at trade academies to add a theoretical component to their practical knowledge. Highly motivated apprentices like Robert Neumaier could even try to take the final exam half a year early, if they had gained sufficient skill, finished their vocational schooling, and had “the party or HJ [testify] that I was a good National Socialist.” Especially skilled apprentices such as Karl Härtel might even become proud winners of the Reich occupational contest organized by the German Labor Front by completing difficult metalworking and electrical tasks. In contrast to later wartime, Paul Frenzel would recall, “The years of my apprenticeship in Leipzig were on the whole quite happy. I hardly paid any attention to politics.”55

  Passing the trade examination opened the door to a career in the blue- or white-collar occupations. Some youths were, like Karl Härtel, able to continue in the same company, at least for a while. Others, like Anneliese Huber, had to search a new job, for which they had to prove that they were of Aryan descent. Her position in public health insurance “was interesting and wide-ranging.” With the first real job came a change in title such as “craftsman” and elevation in status, making the former trainee a regular member of the firm. More important was the raise in pay from ten to fifty pfennigs per hour, which allowed them to buy fancier clothes such as dresses or suits so that they would look more adult. The increase in spending money also made it possible to go to the movies, enjoy concerts, or take weekend trips. But the dream of an easy life soon ran into the obstacle of required Nazi duties such as the men’s Reich Labor Service or the women’s year in the countryside.56

  The onset of puberty complicated the launching of careers because it led to a distancing from the family and to a general revolt against authority. According to Heinz Schultheis, the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship “ran parallel to the changes that nature imposes on adolescents independently of any political system.” Therefore, it “made life in home, school and HJ not really easier.” For Anneliese Huber, the “storm and stress” of growing up meant becoming aware of the disintegration of her parents’ marriage, which caused intolerable scenes: “It was the most terrible time of my life.” Hellmut Raschdorff provoked a conflict with a superior during boring work in a munitions factory. When he was criticized for taking an unscheduled lunch break, he was incensed about “this impertinence” and talked back to the boss. While Anneliese only had to move away from home, Hellmut was forced to volunteer for the military.57

  The teenage years in the mid-1930s were also the time when the older members of the Weimar cohort felt the first stirrings of interest in the opposite sex. Much of this was harmless, such as Frank Eyck’s helping his friend’s sister Rosemarie Schmidt push a bike up a hill in the Grunewald forest in Berlin. (After the war she would become his bride.) Similarly, Robert Neumaier was excited when a new girl named Johanna came into his eighth-grade class: she was “tall, slender, had blue eyes and long blonde braids—a [true] Germanic type.” While she was unapproachable and “did not pay any attention to us boys,” she always knew the answers without being overeager. “I began to idolize Johanna. It was the first time that I was interested in a girl,” he later recalled: “It was my first great love and was destined to remain so, but I did not know it at the time.”58 Though still rather innocent, some such crushes were to have lasting effects.

  More serious affairs developed for those youths who were a bit older and ready to stand on their own feet. For middle-class families, the first contact between the sexes, segregated in school, took place during dancing lessons. Gisela Grothus’ cotillion photograph (image 10) shows girls in dresses, some still with their hair in braids, sitting in front of a group of boys in dark suits and ties who smile uneasily. When Paul Frenzel practiced these skills in the Palmengarten dance-hall in Leipzig, he asked one young women to dance. “I liked her so much that I called on her the whole evening” and walked her to the train at midnight. Thereby “I got to know my present wife,” though he had to overcome his father’s resistance to a working-class bride. Ruth Weigelt’s childhood friendship with Gerhard simply turned into a more serious attachment. Ruth Bulwin met her later husband during an HJ hike when he saw her photograph and decided to beat out a rival. “Yes, that’s the way it was, Rolf was a daredevil; all members of my girl’s group had a crush on him.”59

  Yet relationships had a difficult time maturing due to the dictatorial control of the party and the disruption of the coming war. In the Third Reich, youths were always organized in groups, stressing the ideal of comradeship. Eva Peters recalled that “service in the HJ hardly offered opportunities for contact with the other sex.” Hans Schirmer remembered that teenagers were ignorant about the facts of life: “No one of us had a ‘glimmer of an idea’ of what to do or how to behave.” Anneliese Huber recollected that her mother summarily slapped her first suitor in the face. When a young officer later asked to see her with a bouquet in hand, her parents told him to come back in a year and to write letters in the meantime. “Unfortunately he died during the first months of the war. I was very sad about him even if this was not yet ‘the great love.’”60 One of the Nazi regime’s casualties was therefore the deepening of contacts to sexual intimacy.

  10. Dancing lessons. Source: Gisela Grothus, “Mein Leben.”

  The relative normalcy of youthful lives actually strengthened the Third Reich, since in spite of all the propaganda pressure it allowed a range of responses. Underrepresented among the retrospectives are accounts of genuine enthusiasm for the regime, especially among men. But Eva Peters admits that she was smitten by her new BdM leader, Frieda, in the fall of 1936. The newcomer “was a pretty girl, eighteen years old, with radiant blue eyes.” Her call for dedication to Germany “also set the heart of the eleven-year-old on fire. Hence she went along—at least for the next five years.” Similarly, Ruth Bulwin reports being a happy BdM member, though she does not touch on its politics. By contrast, Robert Neumaier initially had to be forced to join the HJ in 1938. But eventually “I liked this new life pretty well.” Playing games, camping, singing songs, “all of that was great fun for me. I was inspired by being part of a group of comrades, as equal among equals. Finally, I also belonged.”61

  The great majority of apolitical youths were impressed by Hitler’s surprising successes and willing to go along as long as the regime did not disturb their personal lives. According to Heinz Schultheis, “the decisive positive aspect … was the fact, visible to all ‘national comrades,’ that things were now actually getting better.” In retrospect, he called this “the time period in which the NS regime experienced the greatest acceptance in the German population and was not exactly loved, but respected abroad.” At the same time, Paul Frenzel had the distinct impression “that the majority of the population was fairly content with the Third Reich after the elimination of mass unemployment, the introduction of some social measures, and the lifting of the discriminatory clauses of the Versailles Treaty.” When the Saar was returned to Germany by plebiscite in 1935 and Austria joined the Reich in 1938, Ursula Mahlendorf “was swept away by the nationalist fervor of the jubilant crowds.”62

  But a growing minority only went through the motions and engaged in passive noncompliance, finding ever new ways to avoid Nazi demands. After her youth group the Association of Germans Abroad had been merged with the BdM, Gisela Grothus never quite got around to joining and escaped without facing any punishment. Other members, such as Fritz Klein, were increasingly bored with the irksome demands for marching in demonstrations or applauding Hitler triumphs, so “As much as possible [I] escaped the service with some kind of excuse.” As a result, HJ leaders were frustrated by “the number of no-shows” for obligatory service whom they had to track down. Youths who had teachers with integrity or came from nonconformist homes were able to construct “the image of a humane, rational, and peaceful counter-world” to the
Nazi dictatorship. In such circles, it went without saying that “one was opposed” to the NS regime.63

  Some adolescents also found support for a critical attitude in the “Confessing Church,” which rejected the Nazification of Protestantism by the German Christians with the Barmen Declaration of 1934. On hearing of the killing of the SA leadership in the so-called Röhm Putsch, Gerhard Krapf’s father said, “what has happened here was murder” and joined the Protestant opposition by creating a network of critical pastors. His son, who hated HJ drills, hoped in vain that the Wehrmacht would become a barrier against the Nazi dictatorship. Shocked by reports about the euthanasia of the handicapped, Erich Helmer’s father began preaching critical sermons, ignoring Gestapo surveillance in church. To make a point, he even named his brown hens after leading Nazis: “Adolfine, Hermine, Goebbelinchen” and the like. After an HJ leader died accidentally, the son was “not shaken by the death, but by the emptiness of the Nazi cult” that imitated religion. As a result, he left the Hitlerjugend. Similarly the Catholic Joachim Fest followed the maxim “even if all others do—I do not.”64

  Only rarely did “unruly youth behavior” metamorphose into active political resistance; the Gestapo rigorously suppressed any hint of dissidence. In Cologne, Gertrud Kühlem, a teenager from a Communist home, helped gather a group of young rebels who identified themselves by wearing an edelweiss pin, an Alpine flower that symbolized freedom to them. They camouflaged themselves as members of the “Friends of Nature,” hiked, camped, and sang to assert their independence. Convinced that “something needed to be done” against the “unjust dictatorship,” they scrawled slogans on house walls and freight cars, such as “Aren’t you tired yet of the brown shit?” Their actions culminated in dropping hundreds of leaflets from a ladder at the main train station. When the Gestapo finally caught up with them, the women were brutally beaten to extract confessions, while the men were sent to punitive companies at the front.65